River of Blood

by William W. Johnstone

  “Why, damn it, o’ course he is! Wasn’t you listenin’? You got potatoes in your ears? Mahone’s on his way out here for the rendezvous! He’s got hisself a whole wagon train full o’ whiskey and whores just like I do, and he’s plannin’ to horn in on the deal. But I tell you right now . . . if he tries, it’s gonna be war, pure and simple! That there creek will run red with blood!”

  Chapter Eleven

  “That old man is crazy!” Morgan said a short time later as he and Breckinridge headed back to the area where they had been checking their traps when they first smelled coffee brewing. They were well out of earshot of the so-called Finch’s Point by now.

  “He was a mite colorful,” Breckinridge said.

  “Colorful! Crazy as a loon is more like it.”

  “He’s got barrels of whiskey and half a dozen really pretty gals around him all the time,” Breckinridge pointed out. “We’ve got the four of us smelly, unshaved trappers and a pile of pelts that are startin’ to stink a little, too.”

  “Yeah, well . . . well . . . I still say he’s crazy. He burned that fella Mahone’s boat, didn’t he? He even bragged about it.”

  “Mahone stole his girl just as Finch was fixin’ to marry her. Some folks would say that was a good enough reason.”

  “Did Mahone really do that?” Morgan asked. “All we’ve got to go by is what Finch told us. For all we know, that girl Eula Mae might not have ever wanted anything to do with him. She could’ve been planning to marry Mahone all along. The rest of that yarn about her picking Finch over Mahone could be just in that old man’s addled brain!”

  Breckinridge had to admit Morgan might be right about that. They had to ask themselves just how reliable Finch’s story was. It might’ve all been a pack of lies.

  “I don’t reckon it really matters,” Breckinridge said after a moment. “It’s none of our business.”

  “We’re going to the rendezvous, aren’t we?”

  “I figured we would.”

  “Then it’ll be our business if those two old codgers start shooting at each other and ruin the rendezvous for everybody else.”

  Breckinridge frowned and said, “Maybe it won’t come to that.”

  He hoped it wouldn’t. For the trappers in these parts, the big gathering would be the high point of the season. Nobody would want it disrupted by Finch and Mahone going to war against each other, the way Finch had promised.

  After they had gone a little farther, Morgan said, “Are we going to tell Roscoe and Amos about what happened today?”

  The question took Breckinridge a little by surprise. “Well, it’s a pretty good story, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure, but if they know those girls are down there, they’re liable to want to go get a look at ’em for themselves.”

  “What would be wrong with that?”

  “Why, they’d be neglecting their work,” Morgan said as if it were the most logical thing in the world. “They’d ought to be checking their traps, and instead they’d be hanging around the point trying to catch a glimpse of something.”

  “Like we did,” Breckinridge said.

  “Exactly! Not only that, but it could be dangerous for them. You saw how touchy Finch is. If he catches any more strangers lurking around the place between now and the rendezvous, he’s liable to shoot that old blunderbuss of his and find out who they are later.”

  Breckinridge suspected that Morgan just wanted to keep the knowledge of what had happened to themselves for now because he enjoyed having a secret, especially one that involved pretty girls.

  But at the same time, Morgan was right about the possible danger the newcomers to the valley represented. After all they had been through together, Breckinridge didn’t want anything to happen to Akins or Fulbright.

  “All right,” he said. “We won’t say anything. They can find out when it comes time for the rendezvous. But until then, we’d better steer clear of the point ourselves. Finch is convinced that we’re harmless, but he could change his mind.”

  “Deal,” Morgan said. He grinned. “After what we saw today, that rendezvous can’t get here soon enough to suit me!”

  * * *

  Over the next few days of working their traplines, Breckinridge thought quite a bit about not only what had happened but what Morgan had said, as well. Like his friend, Breck was eager for the rendezvous time to arrive. He wasn’t sure how they would know when the time came.

  When it did, he wondered what he would do. He didn’t have any money, but he had a share in the pelts they had taken. He could sell them to one of the fur company men, or he could trade them directly with Nicodemus Finch for . . . What was it going to be? Whiskey? Women?

  Both?

  Breckinridge enjoyed an occasional drink as much as the next man, and he was mighty partial to the company of the ladies, especially when they were as comely as the ones traveling with Finch’s outfit. What would it cost to spend an hour with Annie Belle? Would it be worth it?

  There was only one way to find out, as far as Breckinridge knew.

  At the same time, he felt a smidgen of guilt about Maureen. She had been his first real love, even though he had never done anything more than kiss her a few times. He didn’t even know for sure if she was alive or dead, and yet he was thinking about Annie Belle with a heart full of passion.

  It was quite a dilemma for a young man, all right. Breckinridge tried to tell himself that Maureen would understand, wherever she was, but he couldn’t be certain of that.

  Of course, she had gone and married Richard Aylesworth, he reminded himself. It wasn’t like she had remained faithful and pined away for him. She had never promised to remain faithful to him, nor had he to her.

  More than once he found himself sighing. Figuring out such affairs of the heart could be mighty vexing. Fighting Indians and running away from angry mama bears was a lot simpler.

  Breckinridge and Morgan were down near the lower end of the valley one afternoon, not far from the pass where a trail of sorts entered the valley. Nicodemus Finch and his wagons would have had to come in this way. Breck and his companions had followed one of the creeks in, paddling upstream through a narrow canyon where wagons wouldn’t be able to make it. They planned to leave the same way when it came time to depart.

  Today they had just removed the soaking carcass of a beaver from a trap when Breckinridge lifted his head and frowned.

  “I know that look,” Morgan said. “Did you just smell something again, like coffee brewing?”

  “No,” Breckinridge said. “I thought I heard something. Sounded like . . . men yellin’ at each other.”

  “There shouldn’t be anybody else around,” Morgan said. “Roscoe and Amos went the other direction from us when we left camp, and we’re a long way from where Finch’s outfit is camped.” A look of alarm appeared on his face. “You don’t think it’s another Blackfoot war party, come to search for those others, do you?”

  “I’m not really an expert on such things, but it don’t seem likely to me a bunch of Blackfeet would be hollerin’ at each other. They only yell when they attack, I think.”

  “Then who else could it be?”

  Breckinridge pointed and said, “Sounded to me like the voices were comin’ from up in the pass. Let’s go see.”

  The last time they had gone to investigate something mysterious, they had wound up staring at the beautiful, very bare Annie Belle. Breckinridge didn’t expect anything like that to happen this time.

  But you couldn’t ever tell.

  Breckinridge had no choice but to carry the dead beaver with him. If they left the carcass behind, scavengers would drag it off and the pelt would be lost. He slung a cord around the beaver and carried it in his left hand while he carried the rifle in his right.

  After a few minutes the two young men reached the primitive trail leading to the pass. It wasn’t much more than a pair of tracks where the wheels of Finch’s wagons had worn down the grass. It was entirely possible the wagons
were the first wheeled vehicles that had ever visited this valley.

  But they wouldn’t be the last, Breckinridge figured. As he and Morgan climbed toward the pass, he heard the men’s voices shouting again. Another group had arrived in the valley, and Breck had a pretty good idea who they were.

  Couldn’t be anybody else but Tom Mahone and his bunch, he thought.

  The vegetation thinned out on the rocky slopes to either side of the trail. They could see the pass now, and sure enough, there was a wagon just this side of it. A team of mules had been unhitched from the vehicle and led off to the side. A thick rope tied to the back of the wagon had been passed around a rock spire, and now it was being paid out slowly by the half-dozen men who had hold of it. They were inching the wagon down the steep trail, which was the safest way of getting it to more level ground.

  Off to one side stood a broad-shouldered man with a black mustache that curled up on the ends. His hat was shoved back on his head, revealing a mostly bald dome. He leaned on a heavy wooden walking stick.

  Something was off about the man, and after a second Breckinridge realized what it was. The man’s upper body appeared muscular and powerful, but from the waist down his legs were slender and seemed barely capable of supporting his weight. Breck wondered if he’d been born that way, or if he’d been stricken with some disease that had caused his legs to wither away.

  There was nothing wrong with the man’s voice. He bellowed, “Easy now, boys, easy! Let ’er down slow! Humphries! Lay off that brake. We don’t need it, and you’ll just burn it up.”

  A man sitting on the wagon seat nervously eyed the brake lever. Breckinridge supposed he was there in case the rope slipped or something. If the wagon ran away with itself, he could try to slow it down. That would be a dangerous job. On this rough trail, an out-of-control wagon was likely to crash.

  The men holding the rope continued letting it out as Breckinridge and Morgan approached. The mustachioed man had both hands on the walking stick, but he took the right one off and moved it closer to the butt of a pistol stuck behind his belt as he saw them coming.

  “Mornin’,” Breckinridge said with a nod to the man on the wagon seat as he and Morgan passed.

  “Not a very good one,” the man replied. He was pale and clearly frightened. Breckinridge suspected that if the wagon started rolling free, he would leap off and abandon it as quickly as he could.

  “Who in blazes are you two?” the mustachioed man demanded as Breckinridge and Morgan came up to him. He glanced down at the beaver carcass Breck was carrying. “Trappers, by the looks of you, I’d say.”

  “And you’d be right,” Breckinridge said. “I’m Breckinridge Wallace, and this here is Morgan Baxter.”

  The man grunted and said, “Tom Mahone.”

  That introduction came as no surprise to Breckinridge, and he could tell that Morgan expected it, as well. He started to say something about Black Tom, then caught himself. That would be a giveaway that they were acquainted with Nicodemus Finch, and if Mahone felt the same way his former partner did and took them for Finch’s friends, he might be tempted to shoot, too.

  “You’re here for the big rendezvous, I’ll bet,” Morgan said.

  “I ain’t here for my health,” Mahone said sourly. Breckinridge could see now that several more wagons were in the pass, with at least one still on the other side. It looked like Mahone had a bigger outfit than Finch.

  He was looking at the wagons, thinking—maybe even hoping—that he might catch a glimpse of a woman or two, when one of the men on the rope suddenly yelled, “Look out! The rope’s frayin’!”

  “It’s liable to snap!” another man exclaimed.

  That was true, Breckinridge realized as he turned to look at the nearby rope. It was coming apart in one place, strands twisting away from each other.

  And if it broke, the wagon it was attached to would hurtle down the steep trail, on its way to no telling what violent end.

  Chapter Twelve

  Breckinridge didn’t stop to think about what he was doing. He just dropped his rifle and the dead beaver and leaped over to grab the rope with both hands. He planted his feet and threw his prodigious strength against it.

  He had caught hold of the rope ahead of the spot where it was trying to break. Even with the power in his brawny frame, he couldn’t hold that heavy wagon and its cargo by himself.

  But he took enough of the weight to ease the strain on the weakened part. He grunted with the effort as he hauled back on the rope.

  “Humphries, set the brake!” Mahone yelled. “You other boys, get over there and help the big fella!”

  Both of those orders seemed like good ideas. Unfortunately, they didn’t work out as well in execution as they sounded in theory.

  The other men let go of the rope at the same time to leap to Breckinridge’s aid, but when they did, that threw the whole weight of the wagon on Breck. That made the vehicle lurch forward suddenly as Breck’s feet began to slip.

  Humphries grabbed the brake lever and shoved it just as that happened, and the jolt made it give out with an audible crack.

  There was nothing holding the wagon back except Breckinridge’s strength—and that just wasn’t nearly enough. It picked up speed in a hurry as it rolled down the trail. With a frightened yell, Humphries leaped off the seat, throwing himself far to the side so the wagon wheels would miss him.

  Stubbornly, Breckinridge still clung to the rope. He ran after the wagon, hoping that if nothing else, his weight might act as an anchor and slow it down a little. But his long legs could move only so fast, especially on the rough ground, and after a few yards he tripped. His momentum pitched him forward.

  Still, he wouldn’t let go of the rope. He landed hard on his belly but managed to keep his hands clamped around the rough strand. The wagon dragged him along, bouncing him roughly.

  The smart thing to do would be to just let go and let the wagon take its chances. It would probably wreck when it reached the bottom of the slope, but Breckinridge couldn’t help that. He had done what he could to stop it.

  Then, over the rumble of the wheels and the pounding of his own heart, he heard something that seemed to freeze the blood in his veins.

  Somebody was screaming, and it sounded like a woman.

  Breckinridge struggled to lift his head. Canvas flaps had been closed over the back of the wagon, but they were open now and a woman’s face peered out between them.

  A young, pretty, and absolutely terrified face.

  From the sound of it, she wasn’t alone in there, either. Breckinridge heard other screams.

  That ended his thoughts of letting go of the rope.

  Breckinridge gritted his teeth and started pulling himself hand over hand along the rope, closer to the wagon. He didn’t know what he could do if he made it to the vehicle, but he was going to try anyway.

  Several times he slammed against the ground hard enough to almost knock his grip loose, but he managed to hang on until he was just behind the wagon. Holding on to the rope with his left hand, he reached up with his right arm and tried to grab the top of the tailgate. His hand fell well short of it.

  He continued trying, though, and as he lunged upward something grabbed his wrist. He looked up and saw that one of the women had leaned far over the tailgate and reached down to clamp both of her hands around his wrist. Two more women were behind her, holding on to her to keep her from falling out the back of the wagon.

  “Come on!” the young woman cried. “We’ll help you! But you’ll have to let go of the rope!”

  The rope was the only thing connecting Breckinridge to the wagon—except for the woman’s grip on his wrist. Could he trust her not to let go?

  He looked up at her, saw strands of dark hair flying around her face from the wind, saw fierce determination burning in blue eyes. That answered the question for him, at least as far as his instincts were concerned, and Breckinridge trusted his instincts.

  “Pull up as hard as you can!” he sh
outed to the young woman, and at the same time he let go of the rope with his other hand and lunged up.

  She exclaimed from the effort she put forth as she hauled up on Breckinridge’s great weight. An instant later his other hand found the top of the tailgate and clung to it with desperate strength. That allowed the woman to pull him a little higher. More female hands reached down from the wagon, grabbed hold of his buckskin shirt, and lifted.

  With their help, Breckinridge rose until he was able to get a foot braced against the bottom of the tailgate. That allowed him to throw his weight forward. The women were pulling so hard on him that they toppled over backward as he practically dove through the gap in the canvas cover.

  He landed inside the wagon, sprawled on top of several of the women, including the brunette who had grabbed his wrist in the first place.

  Breckinridge knew he had to get to the front of the wagon. He might still be able to stop the runaway somehow. Muttering, “Sorry, ladies,” he put down hands and knees and found purchase on yielding female flesh.

  One of them went “Ooof!” as he clambered over them.

  He thrust his head and shoulders through the opening in the canvas cover at the front of the wagon and spilled over the seat. Rolling over, he landed in the floorboard and almost slid out. Catching himself, he looked around for the brake.

  The top of the lever had broken off, but the bottom part with its attached wooden blocks was still intact. Breckinridge reached over, took hold of it, and pulled it back. The blocks scraped against the wheel. Smoke began to rise from them as they heated up.

  The wagon was starting to slow down, though, Breckinridge thought. He hauled back even harder on the bottom part of the lever, partially hanging off the edge of the seat as he did so.

  Somehow the wagon had stayed upright so far. That was almost a miracle in itself. Now as it slowed and the slope became less steep, Breckinridge began to hope that the vehicle would roll to a halt without any further mishaps.

  That probably jinxed it, he thought a second later as the wagon hit a particularly bad bump and started to tip to the side.